What are 'Tier 1' solar panels?
- Lyall Burgess
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
'Tier 1' is a term you will often hear bounced around when companies are promoting their solar panels and although it sounds good most consumers aren’t quite sure what it means! I would suggest that people think it must be a good thing, that it's better than Tier 2 or Tier 3 and that it's primarily to do with the quality/efficiency of the solar panel, but they would be incorrect.
The tier system was developed by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) back in 2012 and it’s important to note that it’s a measure of "bankability" of the solar panel manufacturer. It is based only on financial criteria and not the quality of the solar panels being produced, their warranty or degradation rates.
'Tier 1' is only a financial classification applied to solar panel manufacturers, not an indication of solar panel quality
The Tier 1 list is updated by BNEF quarterly and over the years has ranged from 11 to 45 solar panel manufacturers. A company may be removed from the Tier 1 list in any quarter, so only the list for the most recent quarter is valid.
To be considered for Tier 1 listing solar panel manufacturers must have projects:
built using own-brand, own-manufactured solar panels
supplied at least six different projects each over 10MW
financed non-recourse by six commercial banks
completed in the past two years
The 10MW threshold has only recently been put in place from Q2 2025 onwards. Historically it has been 1.5 MW before Q1 2024, and 5MW between Q1 2024 - Q1 2025. That's a 566% increase in the threshold in just 5 quarters. BNEF says this is due to the rapid increase in size of the solar industry and number of manufacturers.
BNEF maintains a Tier 1 list only - no Tier 2 or Tier 3 list!
Most recent Tier 1 list - Q2 2026
Official lists require a paid subscription, but we do know that the list is now at 42 solar panel manufacturers. What we can share is the top 10 Tier 1 manufacturers by annual capacity:
Manufacturer | Country | Annual Capacity |
Jinko Solar | China | 120 GW |
LONGi Green Energy | China | 120 GW |
Trina Solar | China | 100 GW |
JA Solar | China | 88 GW |
Tongwei Solar (TW Solar) | China | 85 GW |
Canadian Solar | Canada | 61 GW |
Astronergy (Chint Solar) | China | 56 GW |
Risen Energy | China | 48 GW |
AIKO Solar | China | 35.5 GW |
TCL Zhonghuan (TZE) | China | 35 GW |
Is Maxeon Tier 1?
More recently you will find Maxeon listed under "TCL Zhonghuan (TZE)" who is its majority shareholder and manufacturing partner. Because Maxeon operates as part of this corporate infrastructure, its panels maintain their effective Tier 1 status.
In summary
Tier 1 is based only on the financial "bankability" of a solar panel manufacturer not the panel quality. There are general misconceptions, even a quick search for Tier 1 on a solar forum pulled up this post: "Tier 1, to me, means paying a premium for a name-brand, reliable western-made product - as opposed to a bargain basement Chinese one."
Some solar panel manufacturers may indicate, or claim, that they are Tier 1 but only those on that quarter's list can claim it. In fact, even from the FAQ on the BNEF methodology document:
Can a Tier 1 firm make an announcement of Tier 1 status? We cannot prevent this but would strongly prefer such an announcement link to this methodology document for important context about what this status means. If a firm makes an incorrect claim of Tier 1 status, public or otherwise, we may widely publicize that the claim is incorrect and also blacklist the firm from future Tier 1 lists.
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